Entrepreneur Dave Mason's background in software development, paired with the right team and a little luck on TikTok, has helped bring his new startup hollr to life.
Mason said the concept for the Charlotte-based startup began to take shape several years ago when he was helping a company develop augmented and virtual reality software. He said because the work was predominately project-based, it was difficult to show others the product without opening the application and walking them through the platform.
"We collaborated on building content and apps, but you really couldn't give everyone everything," he said. "So about a year-and-a-half ago, when I left my job to start my own agency, I decided to figure out a way to create a platform for instant link sharing."
In February 2020, Mason co-founded hollr with a partner who wished to remain unnamed. The web-based platform is an instant engagement tool that acts as a contactless business card. Users can upload their business or professional websites, social-media platforms or email addresses onto an encoded hollr tag.
To share your profile with someone, simply tap your tag onto the recipient's phone, Mason said. The recipient of the information doesn't need a hollr tag or an account.
"They can access it as long as someone is sharing it," he said. "An app-less platform was a big motivator on our part. We understand the app environment might be more familiar, but web-based is much easier for people to use."
Because the tags are encoded with a hollr-specific URL, they're secure, and they can also be disabled if lost or misplaced. Mason said users also have the ability to customize exactly what is shared from within their profile each time.
"These are great for customer interviews or talking to someone at a trade show, while in a meeting or at a networking event," he said. I have the ability to choose specifically what link or links I want to share by tapping on it."
"We took a lot of steps to ensure there's a reason for people to pay for this," Mason added.
Mason said after forming the startup early last year, his team worked on development and began testing tags on friends and family in July. After two months of tweaking, hollr launched publicly on Sept. 1 with 50 users. The tags cost between $19.99 and $24.99, and can be customized with company logos and ordered in bulk.
To spread the word about the platform, the team created a TikTok account and posted a few short demo videos. But they never expected to gain traction by the millions.
"We decided TikTok was a good way to put the product out there," Mason said. "Those couple of videos exploded and [in late 2020] we crossed the five million viewer mark."
He said hollr's revenue skyrocketed, and the team was scrambling to keep its product in stock. The unexpected bump drew in hundreds of new users and allowed for the development team to quickly find and solve product bugs.
"October was a madhouse," he said. "Now that we've had that initial burst and hit that target demographic strong, our focus is on how to get our feet back on the ground and launch again."
The plan, Mason said, is to begin scaling from small businesses to enterprise-sized markets.
And in an effort to help small businesses and organizations make use of hollr during the pandemic, Mason said toward the end of the month he's opening up the platform to non-paying users, giving them access to hollr through the QR code feature. He said that feature will give people the chance to utilize hollr in places like restaurants, breweries and small businesses.
"When you’re logged in, you can open a QR code ... We’ve had a lot of restaurants do this. They can link to their menu, Google reviews, Instagram, Facebook page, Yelp," he said. "That lets customers interact with the restaurant online."
Now that hollr has turned the corner into the new year, Mason said the team is prepping investor pitches and wants to have new funding secured in the next six months. To date, hollr has been completely self-funded.
"Our plans for 2021 include launching two new products, one for consumers and one for businesses, in addition to adding a subscription-based pro feature set," he said.
